African Child: Now that his education is a priority
By Moses Solanke, News Agency of Nigeria
(NAN) The world started celebrating the International Day of the African Child every June 16 from 1991, as initiated by the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU).
The day was to recognise students who protested peacefully in 1976 to press for improved education in Soweto, South Africa; they also cried to be taught in their native language, Afrikaans.
Unfortunately, hundreds of these youngsters were gunned down by trigger-fingered policemen. A 13-year-old, Hector Pieterson, was prominent among the dead.
This day, like in history, African governments and stakeholders meet to discuss the rights of the African child, emphasising his education.
The intention was to have a day when the African child would wake up to enjoy qualitative, free and compulsory education. It is now 48 years since the death of the students occurred.
The students didn’t step out for selfish reasons; they only begged to be duly educated. They marched in the streets because they wanted a kind of education that could give meaning to their dream.
All the young boys and girls wanted was for their fathers and mothers, especially those in leadership positions, to give them the same opportunity, if not better ones, to be tomorrow’s worthy leaders.
They wailed, begged and cried to be educated but were shot dead for it.
It’s been 48 years of wailing for the African child. Unfortunately, he is still crying for the same reasons, wondering if 48 years could be considered too short to have his request considered and implemented.
The African child is amazed that his leaders used the ladder of education to climb up only to fold it up at their top positions, denying them from ever reaching their heights.
He has attended workshops held regularly to discuss his future, yet the future still appears bleak.
He has also heard about the large sum of money allocated to accomplish his educational dream but the reality still stands against his dream.
Government officials had visited him many times in his dilapidated classroom, but they left him sitting on the floor, at best on a three-legged chair, with his books on his lap, for lack of a table.
Talk of a child with a future pictured with mere words and an African child comes into view. To say he is disappointed is to paint his wailing heart in bright colours.
With his few years on earth, he concludes that those meant to pave the way to realise his burning aspiration are ‘dream freezers’!
Without mincing words, the African child is in a dilemma!
With his small voice and tiny stature, he looks up to his big-framed leaders for love, acceptance and opportunities but the responses have been slow.
He is a child who wants to stay healthy, needing his elders’ shoulders to lean upon for support, but none yielded his.
We, however, welcome a ray of hope as the AU declares that the theme of the 2024 Day of the African Child as: “Education for All Children in Africa: The Time is Now!”
Yes, educating the continent’s children has to be done now, and not later, especially having waited for 48 years.
It has to be now because they have waited long for this commitment to be backed with necessary and adequate actions.
Now is also the time to consider and activate all that makes education what it should be. Now is the time to provide an environment that supports wholesome learning and teaching.
What better time is there to reveal that education is beyond academics or academic grades?
It has to be now because he needs to solve the puzzle of how the biblical Moses, during his time, got the best education in Egypt, an African country, while he still struggles to be educated many years later.
Are things getting better?
African nations are known to have provided sound education long before now; educating our children had always come easy to us until when, if I may ask?
If African leaders are saying now is the time to give their children the opportunity to be educated, we say that the children have waited long enough for this to happen.
Let us change the narrative: the African child is not an object of pity but a rare treasure.
You can’t make him a treasure that he is already, but you can create an environment to refine the treasure that he is.
Education identifies and refines the treasure every child is made up, setting the child up for global relevance.
Can we, from the African continent, build and lend our children to redefine the world?
The children have not been asking for the impossible. They have never asked for the moon, sun or stars. They have only been asking for a pathway of education leading to a glorious future.
They want financial budgets increased and deployed for their educational interests. They are asking to be recognised and respected as the future that they are.
To get this done for them therefore, all stakeholders must agree that the time to educate them all cannot be tomorrow; it must be now.
They have waited long enough for this to happen!
God bless the African Child. (NANFeatures)
**If used, please credit the writer and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)